Her insolvency was attributed to a suit in Chancery, which had locked up her means, and which was expected long ago to be decided. Who expected it? Weak mortal! She had not read, previous to her incarceration, the story of Mr. Weston, or the lecture of Mr. Carpenter.

She was brought up on a medical certificate. The prison was killing her. There was more than sufficient property to pay all her debts-only it was in Chancery! Mr. Phillips said her debts were not such as they ought to have been; but he discharged her, because a Chancery suit was the cause of her insolvency. She owed something to a wine-merchant and a milliner. Poor lady! she had inherited property, and it deluded her into anticipation. She did not know, possibly, that Chancery would open its huge jaws to snatch from her her little patrimony, and thus, robbing her creditors, consign her to a dungeon. Poor lady! What may she not have suffered in mind and person!

Let us, then, arm ourselves in a cause which is at once just and necessary, humane and chivalrous. On to this Bastille! Rescue the victims of years, condemned, without crime or hearing, on the lettres de cachet issued by the cruelty of an English Inquisition!

There are some weak-minded persons who are alarmed at the thought of anything being destroyed, which time and custom have sanctioned-people who would die of smallpox rather than be vaccinated. Besides, they say, "What can you supply in its place? There are abuses, great and monstrous abuses; but, remember, that no human institution is perfect. Shall there be no protection for real property, no Court of Appeal, no Equity?" Better, we say, none, than that which exists. However, a Court of Equity is necessary to interpret that casuistry in human affairs which mere

framed and glazed laws cannot effect. A new system must be built up.

We will now give the hasty sketch of a plan, which we recommend to the after consideration of Chancery Reformers. Let the Lord Chancellor's Court alone remain, separated from his political functions. Let him, together with two ViceChancellors, hear appeals as to judgments only, and let their decisions be final. Let vivâ voce evidence be admitted. Let the Court of Bankruptcy be called the Court of Equity, and have jurisdiction in all branches of equity. Its district courts are at Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, Exeter, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Let the official assignees be called trustees, or let them be both. Let all equity accounts be taken as in bankruptcy. Let the books and accounts of all estates be filed with the official trustee, for reference by all parties and making up the accounts. Let them be filed, as in bankruptcy, in six weeks, under penalties, with a power reserved to the Court to grant any reasonable time in particular cases. Let the Court summon juries to try issues, and examine both plaintiff and defendant. Let all the present business of Chancery be transferred into the Court of Bankruptcy in London to be wound up. Let the County Courts have jurisdiction in all matters where the property does not exceed £500. (There is now properly no equity for a poor man.)

suggested to us in part "The immediate effect would

We throw out these hints, by a Chancery Reformer.

be to throw open the gates of an earthly hell and to unlock £200,000,000 of landed and funded property. It would save the country a vast annual expense. The cruel nets of solicitors to obtain possession of property and sweat the inheritance of the unfortunate would be staked and cut

H

for ever. Malignity would no longer have a terrible resource, and dishonesty seek evasion by delay. The property, life, and liberty of an Englishman would cease to be endangered by his own monstrous institutions, and Astræa might again venture, perchance, to set her foot within the cruel precincts of our present Courts of so-called Equity!"

LAMARTINE, LEDRU ROLLIN, AND MAZZINI.

LAMARTINE and Ledru Rollin, two apostles of the late French Revolution—that revolution which merely drove Louis Philippe into exile in his last years, as if to manifest the ingratitude of a nation—these two men have published their sentiments, almost contemporaneously, upon the state and prospects of England. We have called them both apostles, but apostles more different cannot be conceived, except we should refer to Judas and Peter, or the disciple whom Jesus loved and Judas. Their opinions, accordingly, differ. We conceive each in his way to be equally wrong. The sentimental enthusiast and the bitter anarchist are both mistaken and both utter many foolish words. No Frenchman has hitherto written well and soundly upon England. The truth is, Frenchmen do not in general know us, except as an enemy or a caricature. With regard to one of these two men, Lamartine comes here this time sickened by the aspect of the revolutionary fury. His mind has long vibrated. It now points steadily back to traditions, favourite word of his countrymen; but traditions illustrated by order and tranquillity. Lamartine is a poet, but not a philosopher. He is romantic, but not practical. No man has given a truer character of Lamartine than Mazzini-"Lamartine, a

man of impulse and of noble instincts, but unstable in belief, without energy for a final purpose, and without real knowledge of men and things"-So says Mazzini, the hero, the practical regenerator-a man of poetical mind, working out facts nobly.

Lamartine is one who might die a Jesuit, or a Turk, a republican, or an absolutist, a Jew or a Mormonite-but always a good and earnest man. This is he who has come to tell us what we are. He has overdone his praise as Ledru Rollin has over-dosed his poison. But the observations of Lamartine, are in one sense, far more calculated to do harm. His opinion will satisfy the blind, and serve as the excuse and triumph of expediency. It has flattered us and we adopt it. The Free-trader in the glories of England quotes him with triumph wreathed upon his lip. Lamartine says we are prosperous-he, a stranger, a republican, a Frenchman, but a patriot and a poet. Let Lamartine go and live in Turkey, say we, and whiten the face of the Sultan! He states that we have no paupers, no riots, no symptoms of decay. He comes with a salute, a smile, and a bow, to assure us that we are well, very well, exceedingly well indeed.

What is the truth of the matter? A man just escaped from an earthquake, finds any terra firma an elysium. He throws himself on his`knees, and kisses the free soil, without a question of future convulsions. Lamartine comes hither disgusted by the Drama of Liberty, followed by the farce of Louis Napoleon. We do not blame him-for he was sincere. He has seen bloodshed and changes without end, and beheld inconsistency doubt even itself, and turn all things into a jumble. The cries of Hungary and Italy ring in his ears. He finds things, by comparison, steady here. We have not had a Revolution. Why did not Lamartine go to Ireland?

Did he visit the factory districts? Did he see anything but the best streets in London? Is he acquainted with the statistics of English crime for the last two years? Has he not viewed everything like a gentleman just escaped from behind the scenes of a theatre, into a street of comfortable quakers?

The "poet orator" states in a letter, which would seem to be expressly written for, not to, the Times, that, when he visited Ireland in 1830, she was in a state of misery and starvation. He implies then, that Ireland is now flourishing. His description of the felicity of England is most poetical. According to him, it is a golden age of labour. His account of happy little children returning home from the toil of industry, sweetened by pleasure, guarded by angelic females, is worthy of a Frenchman describing the Millennium. So also, of the troops of girls issuing forth from our retail establishments, guarded by fathers and brothers. There is not a beggar to be seen, or a complaint to be heard!

Lamartine tells us that he regrets having sold his patrimony here. We can imagine that he reads stability on the solemn physiognomy of England. He sees wealth and clubhouses, steamers and London bridge, and shopkeepers in the metropolis on a Sunday smiling at the approaching Exhibition. The Times and the free-trade journals tell him that we are flourishing. He goes to a concert and an emigration breakfast. Bon! He sits down and writes a panegyric upon England.

M. Lamartine is right in one thing. We are not easily moved. A desire of change will not cause the bombardment of the Tower or raise barricades in our streets. But misery and famine combined with outward pressure may do both. Then should M. Lamartine fly from Turkey with an oriental Bayadère, fished out of the Bosphorus, to live in peace in